


Her Reputation Precedes Her

by Black_Rose_Authoress



Series: Pleasantville [9]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Alternate Universe - Elementary School, Gen, Genderbending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-06
Updated: 2010-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-26 10:01:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2647850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Rose_Authoress/pseuds/Black_Rose_Authoress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gillian's first day of kindergarten... Prequel to 'Tomatita'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Reputation Precedes Her

If you asked Miss Terrison a year ago for the reason why she had decided to become a kindergarten teacher, she would have probably said that it was because she loved kids and thought that they were truly the key to the future. She loved to see that spark of joy in their eyes when they learned their address and their ABC's. She'd always loved children, so it had seemed a natural career choice.

However, if you asked her today why she had decided to become a kindergarten teacher, she would be more likely to respond with the statement that she'd been an idiot then, who had not yet met Gillian Beilschmidt.

Gillian Beilschmidt. She would have never imagined that she would someday be so intimidated by someone who didn't even reach her waist.

There had been plenty of warnings, she knew. Warnings to run, far and fast. Warnings that she hadn't heeded.

The first of which had arrived after she had made a completely innocent remark while speaking with one of her colleagues in the teacher's lounge, a few days before the beginning of the school year. She'd been getting a cup of the lukewarm crap that they had the nerve to call coffee, more concentrated on her cup than what she was saying. She, along with the rest of the elementary school teachers, were about to sit through a mandatory CPR course and she could already tell that she was going to need some extra, caffeine-induced energy to get through it.

"It's rather odd," she'd stated, as she started stirring in the sugar and milk necessary to make the drink at least slightly palatable. "I don't think I've ever had a class that had so many foreign students. I never even thought our area was that diverse..."

Her friend, Mrs. Harris, one of the second-grade teachers, nodded in agreement. "I've heard that the next few groups of students are surprisingly diverse ethnically. Annette apparently has the same sort of thing going on in her Pre-K class. She has a boy from Turkey, a boy from Germany, a girl from Italy—and that's not even close to all of them."

Miss Terrison nodded, taking a sip of her drink and almost choking at the foul taste. This school needed to invest in some decent coffee. "I was going through my list yesterday. Apparently I've got Francis Bonnefoy—I know you've heard of him, family is ridiculously wealthy, live in that mansion up on that hill, I drive past it all the time. Then there's a Spanish boy named Antonio Carriedo, a Russian boy named Ivan Braginski, a Chinese boy—although he looks more like a girl, I'm going to have to be careful about that—named Wang Yao... A German girl named Gillian Beilschmidt..."

Miss Terrison hadn't been mentally aware of the chattering going on in the background until it suddenly stopped and the entire room went dead silent.

Even her friend had gone completely still. Not only that, but her jaw had dropped in shock and her eyes were wide in a mixture of amazement and horror.

"Did you just say Gillian Beilschmidt?"

She blinked in confusion. "Yes, why?"

For a minute, the second-grade teacher just continued to stare at her. Then she opened her mouth, as if about to answer, but was cut off when the door suddenly opened and the school principal came in to tell the oddly-quiet room that it was time to go to the cafeteria and start. Since he, along with everyone else, wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.

Her second warning came a few days later.

Miss Terrison had completely forgotten about the incident by the time the first day of class rolled around. After all, she was about to meet her students for the first time; she didn't have time to wonder about her colleagues' odd reaction to the name of one of the girls.

So she was rather surprised when she heard the knock on the door of her room a full half hour before students were supposed to arrive.

She was even more startled when she opened the door to see a man standing in her doorway with long, blond hair and a rather bored, apathetic expression on his face. For a moment, she just stood there. Rather startled. Before she suddenly recognized him.

"Mr. Beilschmidt, how are you today?" Why was the vice-principal of the high school coming over to see  _her_?

He just nodded, not answering. Glancing around the room for a few moments before he turned back to her. "You're getting my granddaughter, Gillian, this year. Correct?"

He had said this without his expression changing at all. Very matter-of-factly. She stared at him for a moment in surprise, and then hurriedly took a step backwards in order to let them in. "Well, yes... Would you like to come in? You can sit down if you..." There weren't any seats in the room that were actually normal-sized besides her desk chair, she suddenly realized, so she stopped mid-sentence.

Mr. Beilschmidt just continued to stand there, frowning. And then he continued. "I wanted to warn you that Gillian is troublesome. If you have any problems, then call me." And she suddenly had a piece of paper held out toward her with a number written in very neat handwriting.

Miss Terrison forced a smile, still completely confused. "I'm sure that we won't have any problems, Mr. Beilschmidt. I've had lots of experience dealing with children—some of them can be a little difficult."

He didn't visibly react, besides a slight twitch of his lips in a downward direction. But then he nodded. "All right."

And then he turned, leaving the room without another word. Leaving her sitting at her desk and wondering how any kindergartener could warrant this sort of reaction...

~.~.~

Things were going well. Parents were coming in and dropping their children off. Everyone seemed to be getting along. There'd been a slight incident with Ivan and a pipe that he'd somehow found—she'd have to tell her boss about that; you couldn't have plumbers leaving their equipment around in a kindergarten classroom. But that had been resolved quickly and everything seemed to be going fine.

She really shouldn't have tempted fate with that thought.

"And the awesomeness is here!"

Miss Terrison turned from where she'd been kneeling by the sink, attempting to figure out where the pipe had come from—it didn't look like it had actually come from the piping, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to risk using the sink today...

To see a little albino girl standing in the doorway, dressed in a lacy, frilly black and white dress that only accentuated her gleaming red eyes. Gleaming red eyes that just  _shone_ with the desire to create as much mischief as possible.

Miss Terrison had the sneaking suspicion that she knew who this was...

"Roddy!" And suddenly the girl raced toward one of the boys who had previously been sitting on the floor, innocently playing with a toy piano that he'd found.

And proceeded to tackle him, knocking both him and the piano over in the process.

"Roddy! You didn't move away! I knew you wouldn't! Mutti told me that you would, but I knew she was lying, because that wouldn't be awesome at all!"

The boy just attempted to squirm away from the bundle of energy that was sitting on his stomach, not even looking surprised by the sudden tackle. Although he eventually flashed the teacher a pleading look when he couldn't escape, which she took as her cue to step in.

"And would you be Gillian Beilschmidt?" she questioned, as she walked over and knelt down so she was on eye-level with the girl.

She was a little surprised that no one had mentioned that she was going to be getting an albino student; she would have thought—if people were going to talk about Gill—that  _that_ would have been the first thing they mentioned. She glanced toward the door. Hopefully her parents had come; she'd never had to deal with an albino before...she knew there were some medical precautions you had to take and there was always the chance that she might be picked on...

"I'm the awesome Gill!" She beamed up at the teacher, eyes shining with excitement as she stood up and pointed toward the boy, who pulled himself to a seated position, dusting his clothes off with a surprisingly grown-up sigh. "And that's Roddy, who definitely isn't as awesome as me!" She glanced around the room, taking note of the other students. And pouted. "Where's Toni and Francis?"

Roderich's eyes widened behind his glasses at this statement, now looking a little freaked out. "They're going to be here too?"

"Uh huh!" She jumped up and suddenly grabbed Miss Terrison's hand, smiling up at her with joy. "They are, aren't they? They're my best friends  _ever_!"

Roderich looked as if he were unsure whether he should start crying...or run. Which immediately worried Miss Terrison. Were those three bullies or something? She was about to ask, when she was suddenly distracted by the sound of  _screeching_ from outside the door.

"No! I don't wanna go, stupid!"

"Lovi, you've gotta let go of me so you can go to pre-school..."

"Tonio!" And suddenly Gillian had run off again, shoving a blond boy who had just stepped through the doorway right into his mother's leg.

Miss Terrison hurriedly jerked up to follow. "Gillian! Stay in here, please!"

She completely ignored her, racing out into the hallway. Forcing Miss Terrison to run, shooting through the doorway just in time to see her suddenly tackle another student. This one who was already being clung to by a scowling brunette girl wearing a dress that was even frillier than Gillian's.

"No!" the girl shrieked, pushing at Gillian with one hand as the other clung to the slightly older boy's arm. Gillian ignored her as well, only taking a moment to stick her tongue out at the smaller girl before she stared up at the boy and started chattering.

"Tonio! Guess what? Roddy's in our class! And he didn't move away!"

The boy laughed, seemingly not minding that both of his arms were now in a girl's vice grip. One of whom looked like she'd absolutely love to murder the other. "That's good, Gill. I was just trying to convince Lovi to go to pre-school, but she doesn't want to let go of my arm."

"Stupid," the girl responded, clinging even more tightly to the captured limb.

"Gillian, didn't we tell you to go to your classroom while we were dropping off Ludwig?" Miss Terrison was slightly startled by this statement, as she'd been trying to decide whether she should go out and grab Gill or just let her do whatever she was doing. Now, she turned to see a tall, rather beautiful, blonde woman confidently walking toward them. A man was following her, quite a bit shorter and heavier than the woman, with his hands in his pockets as he stared at the decorations pinned up on the walls. The woman glanced over at the teacher, and then smiled amiably and asked, "Are you Gillian's teacher?"

Miss Terrison stepped forward and offered her hand. "Yes, my name is Judy Terrison. Are you Gillian's parents?"

The woman nodded, glancing down at her daughter, who had just run up and was now standing below them, flashing her mother a happy smile in response. "I hope that she hasn't been too much trouble for you..."

"Oh no, not at all." Besides the thing with Roderich, but she was willing to overlook that. "I'm sure that Gillian is going to do quite well in kindergarten."

Her mother bent down in response to this, staring Gillian straight in the eyes as her husband stared down the hallway, apparently content to let his wife handle this.

"Gillian, you're going to be a good girl, right? Remember what we talked about."

"Ja, Mutti..."

The woman continued to stare at her for a moment, not looking entirely convinced, but then she nodded and stood again. "If you have any problems, don't hesitate to call us." She glanced back at her husband, who pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to the rather surprised teacher. "Here are some things that we thought might be important."

She blinked in shock, glancing at the folded square for a moment before carefully unfolding it. To find that she was holding a well-organized typed-out list of rules...

_Gillian should be in sight of a chaperone at all times. The chaperone should (if possible) check on her activities at least once per three minutes._

_Gillian is not allowed to have such items as gum, silly-putty, or glue. She also should not be allowed to play with things such as play-doh when around other children._

_Gillian is also not allowed to use scissors unless under strict supervision._

_Do not let Gillian near any item that she could possibly use to tie up another person. This includes string, long ribbons, and the drawstrings of hoodies._

"Are you sure all of these rules are necessary?" She'd only gotten through the first four bullets and she was already starting to feel a little overwhelmed.

"Hopefully not, but they're precautions. Gillian can be a little..." She paused, seemingly unsure of how to describe the girl... "A little..."

"FRANCIS!" And suddenly Gillian was off, apparently bored by the adult's conversation. She ran down the hallway, almost knocking Lovina right off her feet as she rushed past Antonio and the little girl.

A blond boy was standing at the end of the hallway, watching as a man wearing a black suit slowly walked toward the room, a backpack held in each hand. At Gill's call, the boy turned, beaming as she ran up to him, throwing her arms around him in excited hug. "Bonjour, Gilly!"

"Guess what? Tonio's already here!" She beamed, spinning around and waving to the Spanish boy, who waved back with his free arm. "And Roddy's in our class! Mutti lied to me! She said that he'd move away, but he didn't! Isn't that awesome?"

Francis immediately smiled and nodded in response. "Of course, Gilly." He glanced back at the man following him, making sure that he was coming, and then began heading down the hallway as Gill skipped ahead.

Gillian's mother sighed softly, and then motioned toward the list. "I'd heard that Roderich's parents were considering taking him out of the school, but I guess they decided not to."

"Ah." Miss Terrison saw this as an opportunity to ask the question that had been worrying her for a while. "Gill isn't a bully, is she?"

"Oh no!" she hurriedly exclaimed, shaking her head. "She's just...playful. You know how kids are... She absolutely adores Roderich—and I think that he likes her too, but one of her last pranks got a little out of hand and his parents...Well..." She shrugged and waved her hand slightly. "His parents were not happy about it."

Miss Terrison glanced back toward the girl, who was excitedly chatting to the blond boy, and then nodded. "I see..." Not really, but she supposed she understood well enough.

The couple turned at this, the father leaning down once they reached Francis and Gillian in order to ruffle her hair and say something to her, probably goodbye. And the mother bent down to give her a kiss on the forehead before they headed out the back door.

The teacher smiled slightly at the sight. It was nice to see parents being so loving with their children... And she seemed like a very happy little girl, so it was probably unlikely that she  _was_ a bully. "All right, everyone, come into the classroom now. We're going to start class soon."

~.~.~

By  _soon_ , she really meant in about fifteen minutes. Since it took about that long to not only get all of the students inside and parents outside of the room, but then she had to pry Lovina off of Antonio's arm and carry her bodily to the pre-kindergarten room as she kicked and struggled the entire way.

She could already tell that next year was going to be fun.

"All right, class. So why don't you all come over here and sit in a circle on the storytelling rug so we can learn names?" She smiled brightly at the children, most of whom just looked at her with rather blank expressions before a few began to obey and wander over to the circular rug, the rest following them and sitting on the edge. She smiled, happy that they were already doing so well. Really, Mr. Roma and Mr. Beilschmidt had been worried for nothing. Gillian seemed like a normal, happy little girl...

"All right, so we're going to play a game now to get to know each other." She picked up a ball that she'd already set near the rug and held it out so the children could see it. "Now, we're going to pass the ball to each other and say each of our names, all right?"

Most nodded at this, watching as she took the ball and passed it to Roderich, who quickly stated his name before passing the object on.

There weren't any problems until the ball reached the Russian student, who just took it, stated his name, and then sat with the ball in his lap, smiling around at everyone else... Most of the students slowly began to back away...

The Chinese girl—wait, boy... Yao... Yao was a boy; she had to remember that—sitting right next to him was the only one who didn't, as he instead scowled at him in irritation. "Give it to me aru!"

Miss Terrison sat straighter, but Ivan interrupted her before she could butt into the argument. As he turned, stared at the boy silently for a moment, and then smiled, looking even happier than he had previously. "Here." He pushed the ball into the small boy's lap, almost knocking him right over. And then he continued, still smiling, "You will be my best friend, da?"

And Yao looked absolutely terrified.

"Ah, Ivan, I'm not sure if you should..." she started, ready to hopefully avert another disaster involving him...

"Mine is more awesomer!"

"Non, mine is!"

"Stop touching me, bloody frog!"

And suddenly Miss Terrison came to the sudden, horrified realization that she hadn't been paying any attention to Gillian, as she'd been more interested in her other students' introductions.

"Francis isn't bloody, Artie. But he should be a frog... Francis, go ribbit ribbit like a froggy!" And now Miss Terrison turned, to see Gillian, Arthur, and Francis standing near the doorway. Each of them holding a crayon. And each of them standing in front of a series of scribbles that were currently covering what had once been a pristine white wall.

"Arthur! Gillian! Francis!" She jumped up, running over to them and grabbing Gillian's arm, pulling her backwards. "You don't draw on the wall!"

"I'm not done!" She attempted to squirm away, but was unable to escape from her grip. "Gilbird still needs an eye! Gilbird won't be able to see if he doesn't have an eye!"

Miss Terrison blinked and then took a closer look at the picture. Which, now that she looked at it more closely, looked a lot like a drawing of a chick. Surprisingly like a drawing of a chick. Apparently Gillian was a decent little artist.

"Walls are not for colouring on, Gillian. If you want to draw a Gilbird," whatever that was "then you'll need to draw it on paper. Would you like paper to draw on, Gillian?"

"Uh uh. I wanna play outside with Tonio."

...Outside? With Tonio?

She hurriedly spun around, not noticing as Gillian suddenly reached over, grabbed Arthur's crayon, and placed a little black dot on the chick's head. As she was too busy realizing that Antonio was nowhere in sight.

"Has anyone seen Antonio?"

Ivan grinned and pointed toward the door leading to the hallway. "He went outside, da?"

...She'd already lost one of her students. Already! And it was only the first day! She'd never had anything like this happen to her before. Granted, she hadn't been teaching for very long. But...But...

She had to find him. Where in the world could he have gone? Damn it, why was this happening to her?

"Gillian." She turned back toward the girl, who was now standing beside Arthur, poking his rather large eyebrows, which apparently the boy didn't like, as he was yelling words at her that no kindergartener should know already. She'd deal with that later. "Gillian."

Gillian glanced up at her, pausing in her harassing of the other student for a moment. "Ja?"

"Do you know where Antonio went? Did he want to go outside to play on the playground?"

She shook her head. "He saw Lovi outside."

"Lovi?" The little girl that had been with him this morning? But she was in the pre-kindergarten class, and it wasn't time for their recess yet...

She hurried over to the window, sliding it open and leaning out. And yes. There they were. Antonio standing up in front of the little girl, who was sitting in the grass, arms crossed over her chest as she glared up at him.

"Antonio!"

He immediately turned at her shout, smiling brightly and then waving. "Hola!"

"Antonio, come back in here! You know you aren't supposed to leave the classroom without permission!"

"But Lovi doesn't want to come inside."

"Stupid!" the girl suddenly yelled, reaching out and tugging on Antonio's pant leg to draw his attention back to her. "Stupid!"

...Great. That meant that she was probably going to have to go out there and get the two of them.

For a moment, Miss Terrison just stood there. She knew she should probably call in. She should definitely call the office, tell them what had happened, and get someone in here to watch the kids... But...

But then she'd have to admit that she'd lost one of her kids. And she'd only be gone for a few minutes, so it wasn't like they could really get into that much trouble...

Something was telling her that this was a  _really_ bad idea.

But she ignored it.

"All right, kids." She glanced around, trying to decide what she should do. "Roderich, you're going to get a very special job right now, all right? You get to be in charge and make sure that everyone plays nicely together while I'm outside, getting Antonio and Lovina."

And then she turned, missing the look of absolute horror that passed over Roderich's face at her words. Along with the smirks that immediately spread across Gillian and Francis's expressions in almost perfect unison.

It would just take a few minutes. Just a few minutes. She hurriedly left the room, closing the door tightly behind her. And then walked as quickly as she could toward the door that would lead outside. How in the world had Antonio managed to leave the room without her noticing? And why in the world was Lovina out there with him?

"Let's play patty-cake, Lovi! It's lots of fun! See, you hold your hands like  _this_  and then you go 'Patty-cake. Patty-cake. Baker's man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can...'"

"I wanna cake."

Miss Terrison turned the corner and was relieved to see the two children sitting right where she'd seen them before. Antonio was attempting to teach the little brunette how to play patty-cake, while she scowled at him irritably and attempted to pull her hands away.

"Hola, maestra!" Antonio glanced up, smiling happily when he saw her. "We're playing patty-cake!"

"Antonio, you should know better than to go outside when you're supposed to be in class. Come along, we have to get back." She glanced over at the girl, who was flashing her the most irritated, evil glare that she had ever received... Apparently the little thing held a grudge. Or she did that to everyone. "And you should be in your classroom too, Miss Lovina."

"Stupid."

Miss Terrison sighed, already guessing that she was going to have to carry her back to her classroom. She walked over, bending down to scoop her up before she had the chance to jump up and run away. Then, she began walking back toward the building. Again, ignoring the kicking and screaming... Antonio skipped behind, apparently not even fazed by the girl's violence.

Okay, she'd just take the girl back to her own classroom. She didn't want to leave the kids alone any longer than absolutely necessary. She could just call Annette to get her.

So, she walked down the hallway, trying to ignore the stream of insults streaming from the little girl's mouth. Pushing the door open with a sigh...

And then she froze. Gasping in horror at the sight that met her eyes.

"Super Awesome Gilly to the rescue!"

"Go away, aru!"

"But Jao-Jao will be my best friend, da?"

She didn't even notice as the little body in her arms managed to squirm away, dropping down onto the floor before running up to where Gillian was standing on top of her desk... Wearing what had once been one of the curtains tied around her neck like a cape.

Roderich was on the floor, yelling at her in some language that Miss Terrison couldn't translate. A hoodie had been pulled over his head so he couldn't see, the arms tied behind his back so he couldn't escape... Although he was definitely attempting, as seen through his desperate squirms.

Francis and Arthur were standing beside the closet, both holding open pots of finger paint.

And paint was covering everything.

 _Everything_.

"Stupid frog!" Particularly them... They were both absolutely covered in bright splotches of paint. And now Arthur dipped his hand into the pot. And then threw a handful of neon yellow paint right into Francis's face.

Ivan had managed to find the pipe again; she had no idea how he had possibly managed to find it. And he was now standing over Yao with it, beaming happily down at the terrified child. "Be my best friend, da?"

While the other children just watched the proceedings with bright eyes and rapt attention, looking absolutely amazed by the sheer amount of chaos surrounding them.

"Are you okay, maestra? Maestra?"

And she now understood.

She now understood what hell was…


End file.
